“But, there is a line there and the other bars do not have lines to get in”.

“I don’t care”.

“But, we were there yesterday”.

“I don’t care”.

“Actually, we have gone there every night this past week”.

“I don’t care”.

“But, there are over 20 gay bars in Chicago to choose from”.

“I don’t care”.

“But we can stay home and drink for free at my place and watch a movie”.

“I don’t care. Sidetrack’s. I want to go to Sidetrack’s”.

“But, the music is not that good there”.

“I don’t care”.

“There is a special party at another bar that we could check out”.

“I don’t care”.

“But, we go there so often they only need to look at us and they know what drinks to pour”.

“I don’t care. I want to go to Sidetrack’s”.

“I have spent so much money there I am sure I own 3% of the bar”.

“I don’t care”.

“But, honestly, we have slept with half the people in that bar”.

“I don’t care. I want to go to Sidetrack’s”.

“But, we cannot dance there”.

“I don’t care”.

“The boys are not very cute there”.

“I don’t care”.

“I just got a text message from a friend who is there. He said it is so crowded it took him ten minutes to get to the bathroom and twenty minutes to get a drink”.

“I don’t care”.

“But, all we do there is just stand around. At other bars we can do things. Like play darts”.

“I don’t care. I love Sidetrack’s. Let’s go to Sidetrack’s”.

“But, I can get us free drinks at Roscoe’s”.

“I don’t care”.

“Maybe we could do a bar crawl and just stop there along our way”.

“No. Sidetrack’s. I just want to go to Sidetrack’s”.

“Fine. But it is actually called Sidetrack. There is no ‘s”.

“I don’t care”.

[Pause]

“Let’s checkin there on Four Square. Do you have an iPhone? Iphone 4? I need an Iphone 4.”

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NOTE: This video was made by a former employee of Sidetrack’s…and is a pretty accurate take on the Brendens who gravitate there (for the uninitiated, “Brendens” is a generic term for the vapid, usually young(ish), looks and material goods obsessed flakes who usually hang out in little cliques in Boystown…they can also be called “Mean Girls”).

When you are the biggest gay bar around and one of the most popular in the world, you need to have a sense of humor about yourself, but strangely Sidetrack won’t play this video on Comedy Night Thursday there. It’s a very image-conscious bar, and they are incredibly protective of their branding…and it feels like they are scared of insulting customers who talk like the sketch above. These Brendens are the ones that give Sidetrack the reputation of a “Stand and Model” bar, where that certain kind of guy goes there on a Friday or Saturday just to stand around, try to look cute, and judge others while believing he’s not being judged.

It never gets really bad, though, because the worst offenders at this kind of thing go to MiniBar, which is what MiniBar is for. If you are a d-bag really into the pretension, that’s where you go. Absent MiniBar, they would be at Sidetrack though.

The jab at them about the music isn’t always fair though. Some VJs there are better than others, and some nights are better than others for music. It’s a crapshoot because there are excellent VJs, and then there’s the two duds they have in the mix. One of them is a co-owner who plays moldy black and white vaudevillian videos on Showtunes night that are so old and obscure the picture and sound quality is warped to the point where people think their eyesight and hearing have failed them. The other VJ just plays games — like not running any of the requests he gets on “80s Video Request Night Tuesdays” and instead just plays whatever songs he wants to play (people call him Otho, and he looks down from the VJ booth at the crowd, keeping track of who is talking to who and generally being the spider queen of gossip in Boystown).

The whole bit about “it’s just Sidetrack, there’s no ‘s” is because 80% of the people in Boystown call the bar “Sidetrack’s”, with an “s” tacked on. There’s a bar across the street called Roscoe’s, with a possessive “s”. There’s also “Little Jim’s”, “Charlie’s”, “Bobby Love’s”, “Halsted’s”, and “Buck’s” on the strip. Other bars like Spin, Cocktail, MiniBar, Lucky Horseshoe, Hydrate, Kit Kat, Circuit, and Northend don’t get the possessive-s treatment. I’ve never figured out why people add an imaginary “s” to Sidetrack, but not to the other bars without that “s” in their actual names.

It’s just a weird quirk of Boystown.

If you live in Chicago and go out a lot, you probably call it “Sidetrack’s”. If you are from out of town and aren’t in Boystown a lot, you’d say “Sidetrack” because that’s what you read on their website or the concierge at your hotel told you to look for.

The video program used to create this very well-done skewer of the Boystown scene is called www.XtraNormal.com. You can use the preloaded animated characters, like the bears above, and type in text for the characters to speak. Geico has been running a series of commercials on TV employing this. They always talk in that slightly sing-song, robot voice.

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UPDATE: January 1st, 2011

I was pleasantly surprised to see this video played in Sidetrack last night, on New Year’s Eve, as part of the Best-of mix for 2010. I’ve yet to see it make it into the Comedy Night rotation, but Sidetrack(s) does have a sense of humor about itself and put the video up on the big screens.

Customers laughed at all the right parts, knowingly.

The bit where the first little bear says “But the boys are not very cute there” got an “Awwwwww” and a few “Burn!” comments. In a smiling, realizing it is often true but not admitting it way.

Sidetrack cut the video off before it got into the 4G phone stuff, which was a good call.

I don’t know what made them come around on this because I heard from several people who know management well that the bar hated this video when they first heard about it…but they’ve now embraced it.

Kevin DuJan is the author of SHUT UP! The Bizarre War that One Public Library Waged Against the First Amendment. He is a gay, Catholic, conservative, Republican who advocates for government transparency, Freedom of Information, Open Meetings, and First Amendment rights. He lives in Chicago with his boyfriend Justin.